Island Hopping

Island hopping, also known as “Leap Frogging” was a defensive strategy used by United States Navy and Air Force during World War 11 in the South Pacific.  The objective was to take over small but strategic islands, establishing air and naval bases along the way. (Tzeng, 2008) This campaign was to take control of the Pacific Islands to get closer to Japan.  The United States chose their islands strategically.  They selected islands that could easily be taken from the Japanese, because it had little to no Japanese presence there.  Other islands on the list were extremely hard to conquer, such as Iwo Jima and Okinawa.  The United States opportunity was to take islands and create air strips and bases for the fueling and take off of B-29 bombers on their way to Japan.  The capturing of these islands also cut supplies off from Japan’s mainland, in turn, crippling the Japanese effort.  Island Hopping began after the victory for the United States at Midway.  This was a decisive victory from the United States.  It ended the Japanese threat to Hawaii and the mainland of the United States (“US History: Island, 2006”) After Midway, the United States quickly made up the plan to begin Island hopping. This would prove to give the United States the upper-hand on the war in the pacific.  These series of strikes were lead by General Douglas MacArthur, Commander and Chief of the Allied Forces in the Pacific and Admiral Chester Nimitz, Commander and Chief of the Pacific Fleet. (Tzeng, 2008)  The initial move in the Island Hopping campaign came in 1943.  The United States began with the Gilbert Islands when the forces stuck Tarawa Atoll. (Mayer, 1976)  It took three days for the United States to capture this island after brutal fighting and severe resistance by the Japanese.  This battle proved to be extremely important for the United States, only seventeen Japanese soldiers remained alive after the three days of fighting.  United State forces lost one-thousand men and well over two thousand were wounded.  The capture of this island was necessary in allowing the allies to move onto the Marshall and Mariana Islands in their campaign.  The United States began striking the aircraft carriers and naval bases at Truk Atoll, in the Marshall Islands. By mid- February the Allies had successfully conquered the main islands in Marshall.  The United States was successful in destroying several cruisers and destroyers as well as 270 aircraft. (Mayer, 1976)  This was a successful mission for the United States.  The Mariana Islands were next on the hop.  It was extremely important to capture all of these islands, because they would place homeland Japan and her islands within reach of US B-29 bombers.  The Mariana Islands are made up of fifteen small islands, but the main focus for the hop was Tinian, Saipan, and the neighboring island of Guam.  The first island in the chain to be hit was Saipan.  United States forces began landing early in the morning on June 15, 1944.  It had been speculated that there would be resistance of ten-thousand men on the island, when in reality the United States forces met resistance from thirty-thousand defenders.  The Japanese understood the importance of the Mariana Islands and were going to do everything they could to keep them in their control.  Japanese Admiral Toyoda, commander of the Japanese Fleet, dispatched his Vice Admiral Ozawa to an area to engage the United States fleet before they were allowed to take the shore.  Ozawa and five Japanese carriers fought American carriers for two days in the Pacific.  The United States also had a large amount of help for their aerial forces.  The United States planes took down over six hundred Japanese aircrafts, while only losing a little over one hundred of their own. (Mayer, 1976)  It was obvious that this battle was one-sided and a great victory for the United Sates.  Pilots referred to this triumph as “The Great Marianas Turkey Shoot.”  The Japanese forces had very few aircraft and carriers remaining, so they retreated, leaving the Marianas in complete control of the United States.  Upon reaching the ground in Saipan, the Japanese foot soldiers were slow to retreat; they fought diligently until retreating for the caves on the island.  After this, Saipan was declared secure.  The battle of Saipan was the costliest  battle to the United States to that date.  They lost 14,000 men during this battle.  With Saipan safely under the control of the Allies, forces moved down the Mariana chain to Guam.  United States forces stormed Guam’s beaches with 36,000 men.  Fighting lasted in Guam for a month.  They drove some 18,000 Japanese soldiers north until the island was secured.  (Stewart, 2006)  During the fighting on Guam, troops landed on Tinian Island.  Marines took the island into American control just six days after landing.  Now that the entire chain of the Marianas was secure, the allies began construction on airbases of which raids on Japan would be launched. (Mayer, 1976) After capturing several of the islands on the hop, there was a disagreement between the two major men in charge of the operation, Nimitz and MacArthur. The disagreement was over the next step in the campaign and where to go from there.  Nimitz wanted to bypass the Philippines and lead his men into Okinawa to capture the important air bases.  MacArthur wanted to fulfill his promise to return to the Philippines and also land in Okinawa.  President Franklin Roosevelt delegated the powers to MacArthur and a plan was drawn into action.  The campaign would travel to the Philippines in the hopes of liberating its people.  The first step was to capture Peleliu in Palau Islands.  In late November 1944, Pelilu was conquered by Allied forces.  The second strategic campaign in the Philippines was to capture the island of Leyte.  Forces arrived to the island in October of 1944. The battle would come to be known as the Battle of Leyte Gulf.  It was the largest naval battle in history and also marked the last time in the pacific that the Japanese Navy would conduct a large-scale operation. (Hall, 1991)  It had been nearly crippled by the American attacks.   Upon defeating the Japanese at sea, the campaign pushed across Leyte and into Manila, the capital of the Philippines.  The Filipino people were liberated near the beginning of 1945. (US History: Island, 2006)  The final two hops of the campaign were both bloody and absolutely imperative for providing a Japanese defeat.  The fighting in Iwo Jima began on February 19.  United States Marine Corps landed on the beaches of Iwo Jima and were struck to find an eerie silence. (Hall, 1991)  Iwo Jima appeared to have had little to no resistance as the Marine Corps began to take the beach.  This was a setup by the Japanese forces to lure the troops onto the island and then unexpectedly open fire on them.  There was a total of 70,000 United States Marines that charged the beaches of Iwo Jima.  They met opposing forces from 27,000 Japanese troops. (Kapler, Randall, & Kelton, 1977)  The island of Iwo Jima was secured after thirty-six days of brutal fighting.   Many men who served at Iwo Jima received Congressional Medals of Honor for their actions and bravery there.  Admiral Nimitz later remarked that, “Among the Americans who served on Iwo Island, uncommon valor was a common virtue.” (US History Island, 2006) Okinawa was last hop of the campaign in the Pacific, as well as the last major battle of World War 11.  It was here that the United States combined complete force of their Navy, Army, Marines, and Air Force all united in a final struggle before they invaded the mainland of Japan. (Tzeng, 2008)  The code-name for the capture of Okinawa was named, Iceburg.  The invasion began the first day of April, when 60,000 American troops landed.  The fighting began with a heavy concentration of naval gunfire.  Positions off the beaches were occupied by ten American battleships.  This also included nine cruisers, 23 destroyers, and 117 rocket gunboats. (US History: Island, 2006)  Together they fired almost 4,000 tons of shells toward Okinawa in the first day.  The fighting was broken up into four different phases by taking over different parts of the island.  The fourth and final phase was most difficult, because the Japanese had built trenches and artillery underground, making naval gunfire ineffective.  American fleets were also bombarded by Japanese Kamikaze. (Hall, 1991)  These pilots were suicide bombers that were instructed to fly their planes into enemy ships and the ground to kill as many troops as they could.  Surrender was not an option for these pilots; death was the only way out.  On June 21 the Japanese resistance ended and American troops had a firm control of Okinawa.  Okinawa was the bloodiest battle of the war in the Pacific, with more than twelve thousand American troops loosing their lives. (Hall, 1991)  It was definitely the most beneficial and important battle in winning the war against Japan. 

The photo above is a map of the “Island Hopping” Campaign in the South Pacific. The blue line signifies the direction in which the Allies went in to capture the islands. This campaign was crucial in taking over the islands in the Pacific Theater. The success of this campaign put the Allies within range of the Japanese mainland, setting them up for a final victory. ("World war 2 chat”)